


If Only

by Salty_but_Sweet



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Friendship, Halo 4, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 22:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20033107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salty_but_Sweet/pseuds/Salty_but_Sweet
Summary: John trying to cheer up Cortana with fantazies of their future while they are on their way to stop the Didact.





	If Only

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a request on FF . net by TralfamadoreUndone. The concept to have Halo 4 John and Cortana fantasize about what they could do in the future/John cheering Cortana up was interesting, although it took me some time to materialize the idea. John doesn’t strike me as the type daydream during the events of Halo 4 and while Cortana most definitely would, I don’t see her bringing those dreams out in the open because she wouldn’t want to put John in that spot. But… maybe you could work around the problem. Unfortunately, I had to skip the Requiem to place this in a direr situation where John is not holding up so much steadfastness over making it to Earth and curing Cortana.

”What did you say?”

Cortana’s processes came to a halt and present time materialized in a flood of data from the ship’s sensors, “Said what?”

“Something about sheep.” Chief began hesitantly. He had tried to accommodate the best he could into this new situation and Cortana’s well-being. The random outbursts and changes in her mood, the jumbled tactical information and the occasional loss of focus.

Cortana tried to vehemently check the last minute or two from her recordings but couldn’t find anything that could have plausibly have happened in reality. Her processes _did_ offer her some options on what could have happened, but the scenarios were so out of place and Chief’s words so out of character, not to mention that Arbiter wasn’t onboard with them — right? — that she dismissed them without much further thought. She had been preoccupied with her rampant thoughts — that much she did know.

The lack of information mortified her at the prospect of having to showcase how worse for wear she really was. Her minds had battled for so long how John would continue with the disposal protocol, become deeply unsettled by the change in the status quo or still care for her all the same that she wasn’t sure what she believed in anymore. How certain she had been of their relationship even before Rampancy had truly set in?

“You’re counting sheep?”

John looked her long enough to make known that he could see past her diversion. That he wasn’t going to torment her over this, he just wanted to know.

“Sheep?” Cortana asked, her hands behind her back and straightening up to take on the task set for her.

“Sheep. You said something about farming sheep.”

Cortana’s eyes bulged a tiny bit before she put her hand on her forehead. The gesture was usually reserved to signal analytical pondering, but now, there was a hint of hiding past her shame.

“Farming sheep?”

Chief nodded, not taking his hands off the controls.

He hated to see how personally Cortana took the situation, but he couldn’t deny being intrigued. Plus, he wished to understand Cortana’s mind, to make her laugh over something trivial with the galactic threat of the Didact looming unavoidably ahead of them.

There was a long silence as they flew across space, Chief took occasional side-eye glances on Cortana to see that she hadn’t gotten lost in her thoughts again. It was silent apart from the metallic hum of the ship.

Ultimately, he could see the second Cortana found her answer when her tiny face was tinged with embarrassment.

“Forget it,” Cortana said, her voice gaining back her old attitude.

“You know if you don’t give me an answer, I’ll come up with one myself.”

Cortana glared at him for the challenge he was posing, but ended her silence with a dramatic sigh.

“I thought what you might do if we survived this. In civilian life. Just a random line of thought my processes came up with.”

John watched how Cortana looked into the black space ahead of them.

“Farming sheep?”

There was more than a tint of humor coloring his voice.

“Well no, but… You know doing something down to Earth, farming, gardening, timber, fishing…” Cortana shrugged her tiny shoulders, paying no attention to the flash of red in her color. “I thought of chickens, but they have beaks, and I think you wouldn’t care for animals with too sharp and pointy bits; pigs too, but you have to eat them to get anything survival-ish out of them. Sheep are cuddly, cute, soft, woolly…”

“So… sheep?”

Cortana shrugged her shoulders again with a small tilt of her heard. “Or anything that you’d want to do.”

John was quiet for a while, he hadn’t really thought about how his life would be. In reality, he hadn’t actually thought Cortana would have either. War was what they knew, what they were made for.

Captain del Rio’s comment about his age weighed his mind. Without Didact, he would probably be forced to think about the very thing in his quarters on Infinity, course set towards Earth and retirement.

Somehow the image of the enormous, unyielding ship was overridden with an image of a sheep, flocking in his feet to take him over if he didn’t feed them fast enough. Cortana laughing her head off when he would come back inside sneezing a fluff of wool, his expression carrying enough ‘Don’t ask’ to make her laugh twice as hard.

At present, Cortana didn’t ask him what he wanted to do because she knew how little thought he had given to the option, how it would make him uncomfortable. Still, he replied to the burning question, “Sheep sounds fine.”

Against his expectation, Cortana snorted at the reply, “So, now you are going to listen to me?”

The blue AI was quiet after this and the slumping mood was becoming palpable, John could see the far away distress on Cortana’s features and the prolonged flashes of red. It made him even more uncomfortable than the conversation.

“I get to pick the sheep.”

The change in Cortana’s attention was immediate. “I can imagine you naming them after your team. You’d name the most assertive and the fastest according to Spartan-087, the most careful one that looks from afar when you set hay as Spartan-058 and the biggest one after Spartan-104.” Cortana mused.

“And you would blackmail me with the information every time they were to visit us,” John replied with his deep baritone, both of their voices businesslike.

Cortana laughed with a hint of melancholy, “I would.”

Her holographic arm swiped her nose once before she managed to compose herself.

“I’d like that.” She said quietly and John could do nothing else than to silently agree with her.

**Author's Note:**

> I think I just made almost half of John’s vocabulary built around the word ‘sheep’. Oh boy…


End file.
